Lighting Turns Sawdust Gold
by nottonyharrison
Summary: She sees a man who betrayed her and made a fool of her. She sees a man who believed in her and took a risk on her. She sees one man who wants to exploit her, and another who almost refuses to. In the dream she had seen two men who left her with nothing, but only one had promised everything. Beth/Rio post ep 10
1. Prologue

In the dream, Beth was cold. Her hands were frozen and shaking as she held the gun, fingers trembling at the trigger as if the metal were causing a frost to creep down her fingers to the tips. Her knuckles were locked up and yet she felt that at any sharp sound her index finger would jerk backward and the gun would fire.

There was no dream though. Instead she was standing in her dining room looking at two bloodied men staring at her. One with defeat and the other with a challenge, asking her to both squeeze the trigger and set down the gun at the same time.

Dean's gaze was almost glazed, the bruises stark on his pale face. She wasn't a fool, she knew the injuries from the accident wouldn't have been pretty. He's telling her to do it, to put a hole through Rio's head and _fuck who gives a shit what happens next_ , but she's had a few moments to think about it and all she's seeing now through the tears is a man who just got hauled in by the Feds and put up a bit of a fight.

She knows it's all smoke and mirrors. It's what he's best at. Make it all look like a bunch of inner city gangbangers when really they're just regular white collar criminals.

Drop a bloodied gunshot victim who's in too deep with the drug scene to keep his mouth shut on your doorstep. Keep you quiet. Keep you scared.

She looks at his arms and notices the lack of tattoos. His shirt collar is more open than she's used to and there is nothing below the eagle tattoo on his neck.

She sees a man who betrayed her and made a fool of her. She sees a man who believed in her and took a risk on her. She sees one man who wants to exploit her, and another who almost refuses to.

In the dream she had seen two men who left her with nothing, but only one had promised everything.

"I smell bullshit."

She can feel the weight of the gun in her hand. it's heavy. She can't tell if it's loaded, but she suspects it isn't.

Rio Licks his lips.

They stare at each other for long moments and nobody speaks until she sets the gun down and slides it back across the table.

"Why don't you do it yourself?"

Rio looks off-guard for a moment, a brief flash of insecurity across his face betrays his confidence, but he recovers quickly.

"What, you want me to pop one in myself? Nah, that ain't how it works sweetheart. You want to take me you do it yourself you don't get your Fed buddies to do it for you." He nudges the gun back across the table.

It doesn't go far, and it sits in between them. She can see Dean's pleading eyes as Rio grabs at his hair and pulls his head back hard towards the drapes.

And then it happens too fast. Dean lunges for the gun, and Beth grabs for it reflexively, tears still blurring her vision

She's squeezed at the trigger before she has time to think about it, barrel pointed towards him.

There's a click.

The defeated stare becomes one of surprise.

The challenge remains the same.

"What the _fuck_."


	2. Chapter 1

It was the moment she saw him standing on the porch during Kenny's birthday party that it started. She thought it was later, when he told her to tell Agent Turner that they were fucking but she was wrong.

The moment was definitely the party. She had felt hot and cold all at once and for a brief second she had wondered what it would be like for him to touch her in ways that Dean never had. Only a second though, not longer.

Not longer until she had been in the car and he had leaned against the headrest like he was thinking about it too, imagining how he could push her hard up against a wall… kiss her until they're both gasping with need and rage. Definitely not making love.

Ugh, making love. She hated that term.

...

Her eyes were wide with surprise and her arms shook as she lowered the gun and dropped it to the ground.

Dean pushed off again, this time toward the kitchen, but Rio pulled him back by the collar and sat him in his chair. Rio rubbed his free hand across his face and looked a her, gaze burning into her making her squirm. She didn't move, the shock setting into her muscles like she was at the seventy five meter mark of a hundred meter sprint. She didn't look down but she could feel the presence of the gun next to her feet.

She can't look at Dean, and instead keeps her eyes fixed on the curtains above the two men's heads. Neither speak. Dean's outburst the sound any of them had made. Eventually she hears a grunt and Rio pulls Dean up from the chair towards the stairs.

"Wait here," he says. His eyes are guarded and a little soft. The challenge is gone, and he drags dean around the table. "Give me the gun."

She tries to stop the shaking as she bends down to pick it up, but she can't stop the tremor as she hands it to him. He shoves it in the waistband of his jeans, and she sees a sliver of tanned yet sallow and waxy skin. There's a strip of black leather just above his belly button. He gestures towards one of the dining chairs.

"Sit your ass down and don't move until I get back."

Dean struggles against him for a moment, but there's a jangle of metal and suddenly his hands are in cuffs, twisted behind his back.

There is no more sound other than their footfalls and the neighbor's kid practicing the guitar.

She falls dead asleep on the dining chair.

...

She only seriously thought about kissing him once. She never told Annie or Ruby, but it wasn't like it was anything romantic anyway.

It was right after she threw the keys at him and hit him in the face. The flash of vulnerability in his eyes before he glanced down and touched the corner of his mouth had triggered a rush of... something. She still wasn't sure what it was but it made her want to move into his personal space and push her hands over his closely cropped scalp, press her mouth up against the corner of his, and rub her cheek against the stubble on his jaw.

It was only for a moment though. The anger had resurfaced immediately.

She hadn't thought about pressing herself up against him and feeling his rough face against her skin since.

Nuh-uh. Not once.

She keeps telling herself that.

...

The friction of bodies moving against one another is what wakes her. She feels a hard hip digging in to hers. She's laying on her side on something far softer and less supportive than her bed, and she can feel the warmth of someone else next to her.

Her eyes spring open.

His are still closed. His lips are soft and relaxed, and his body is tilted towards hers. She' surprised he hasn't fallen off the edge of the couch.

Her hand is wrapped around the back of his neck, the soft hair tickles her fingers. He's warm and she can feel the sweat between her fingers and his skin. She drags her hand back towards her body and tucks it close to her chest. There's a smear of black left across his neck.

She falls back to sleep

...

He's hard against her, pressing into her back while she reaches for the jar of tea leaves on the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard. The marble of the counter is pressing into her hips and she sighs as she feels lips dragging across the back of her neck, and across the shoulder exposed by her loose sweater.

She wakes with a start.

"See, I thought I told you if you want to be the king you have to kill the king, but then you go and throw a fly in the ointment like that."

His voice sends shivers down her arms to her fingertips and she breaks out in gooseflesh.

"Like what?" She shrinks back into the plush cushions of the couch and eyes him warily. He's sitting on the coffee table.

He smirks and runs his tongue over his bottom lip before biting it. She wonders if she had more than one sex dream while she was out.

"See, I can understand a housewife wanting to kill a gangbanger who invades her house but... pulling the trigger on her own husband? Now that I'm not so sure about."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

He reaches under his shirt to the leather holster against his belly and pulls out something. He puts it down quietly but firmly on the table next to him, eyes not leaving hers. She sees the black streak where her sweaty finger had dragged across his tattoo earlier. The smudge goes right across one of the wings of the eagle.

She stays silent for a long time and they stare at each other until she reaches out and takes what looks like a large credit card wallet from the table.

"He was faking cancer. He lied to me so I would let him stay in the house."

"Oh honey I know he was manipulating you... gorgeous broad like you married to an ugly fucker like him..." He drags a finger across her cheek and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. "Hell I'm surprised he doesn't have your mom chained in the basement or somethin'. Why the fuck else would you stay with trash like that for half your life?"

She flips open the wallet and lets out a long breath. She's not sure if it's surprise or relief, or perhaps a strange mixture of both.

The ugly, badly designed identification makes her itchy in a way she doesn't understand. She blames it on the terrible maroon border. "Why are you showing me this?"

"Hell, I don't know. Maybe I want you to think I'm a good person." He looks down briefly and swipes at the corner of his mouth. She can't tell if he's _trying_ to look bashful or if it's a reflex for him.

"Forgive me for being ignorant but I thought there was some kind of law against your kind operating on US soil."

"That depends on your perspective... and semantics."

She snorts and rolls on her back. The ceiling has a few black marks on it from where one of the kids had bounced a ball in the living room after they had been playing with it on the hot road last summer. "Where's Dean?"

"I put him to bed."

Beth turns back on her side and looks at Rio for a few moments, considering her words. "With handcuffs?"

"I said I want you to think I'm a good person, I didn't say I _am_ a good person."

"So what, you're a criminal who accidentally got mixed up with the CIA?"

"Rude. They took one look at me on the farm and thought 'ganbanger'. Diversity's not really their thing." His smile is ironic, the corner of his mouth twisting with a wry self deprecation. Her heart twists a little.

"Are you going to let him go?"

"Do you want me to?"

She purses her lips and thinks. "I'm pretty sure you're going to drop me off with the FBI and tell them I tried to murder my husband. Not really sure it matters what I want"

He barks a sharp laugh. It's familiar, and she shivers, remembering the times he's used the same mirthless laugh with her in the past. "Fuck the FBI I ain't giving them shit."

She licks her lips and raises her hand to her face. Her hair is in her eyes and she pushes it behind her ears. "So where do we go from here?"


	3. Chapter 2

"So where do we go from here?"

He raises an eyebrow and swipes his hand across his chin. "look, here's the thing okay? You have no value to me as an asset, or even just as a pawn in this game I'm playin', you hear me?"

Beth frowns and sits up. "So you're telling me I'm just some useless basic bitch who got messed up in something bigger than a small time gang operation? Thanks a lot." She rolls her eyes and looks back up at the black marks on the ceiling.

"Nah... well yeah but also..." He trails off and grabs either side of her head so she looks at him. "Look I don't know why I'm readin' you in or why I even want you to think I'm on the right team, but I do. I'm not sayin' I'm a good person or that I'm clean as a whistle or that everything I've done in this job isn't morally ambiguous... I'm just sayin' gimme time okay?"

"Why?"

His hands slide into her hair and she shivers in fear and something else. Half and half.

Definitely not thirty-seventy.

Jesus. He's licking his lips and his eyes flit down to her lips and she doesn't know what to do other than wrench her head out of his grasp and get up off the couch. "How do I know you're legit and that thing in your wallet isn't just something you made in Photoshop? I could make shit like that in fifteen minutes."

He runs a hand over his scalp. "I guess you'll just have to trust me."

She snorts. "This s ridiculous. What am I going to do with Dean? He hasn't done anything and now you've got him mixed up in all of this00000!"

"Yeah, he's done _absolutely_ nothin'." His smile is wry and he shoves his hands in his pockets. "Look, tell him you weren't aiming for him, you were testing to see if the gun was loaded. He got a concussion his eyes are pointing in all kinds of directions."

"And we're just going to ignore the fact you beat the shit out of him?"

Rio flings his arms wide. "Dude walked in like that, I was just takin' advantage of the situation.'

She narrows her eyes. "How about you?" She points at his knuckles and the scrapes on his face.

"Are you forgettin' that you _got me arrested?_ " His voice is loud now, and she shrinks back towards the stairs. "The parking lot of the local Cloud Nine ain't exactly the most comfortable place to get wrestled to the ground by a _bunch of feds_."

"You know what? Go unlock Dean and get the fuck out of my house."

He digs into his pocket and pulls out some keys. He thinks for a moment and she wonders if he's going to toss them in her face like she did to him, but instead he steps forward. She hadn't realized she had curled her hands into fists until he takes one and unfurls it, placing the keys in her palm.

"Do it yourself."

And then he's gone.

...

Dean is asleep when she undoes the handcuffs. She looks down at him for a few moments at his bloody face against the striped bedspread and frowns. He's bled on one of the cream parts and it's already dried. She must have been out to it for longer than she thought.

She thinks about leaving Dean be, but doesn't want to risk him waking up and calling the cops, so she prods him hard in the ribs.

He moan loudly. She prods him again. 'Owwww, they're fractured stop it."

"I need to discuss something with you." She grabs the chair she tosses her coats on from the corner of the room and sits down next to the bed side.

He cracks an eye open. "Did I dream it or did you try to shoot me?"

"I didn't try to shoot you, I shot at the wall. I was testing to see if it was loaded." She pauses for a moment thinking of how to sell it. "Although I _wanted_ to shoot you. How could you lie about having cancer, of all things?"

" _That's_ what you're focusing on? I was being held _hostage_."

"Oh don't be such a baby he was just testing me out to see if I would kill him if I had the chance... I kind of got him arrested." She crosses her arms and sits back.

"Why would you not take the chance? I'm not sure I mentioned but he was holding me at gunpoint and now you tell me you got him arrested... what part of _opportunity to kill the guy_ didn't resonate with you?"

"The _gun wasn't loaded, Dean._ " She scratches at her temple. "Besides we have a... thing."

Dean recoils.

"Not like that."

She reaches into the bedside table and takes a packet of aspirin out, tosses them on the bed and leaves.

...

She's pressed up against the shower wall, legs trembling as he runs the flat palm of his hand down her spine. The water beats hard against her shoulder she can feel the spray against her cheek. His lips are on her neck, the side that isn't being massaged by the water, and his teeth nip at the taught tendons exposed as she cranes her head to the side to beg him for more.

She can feel his cock against her hip. It's hard and smooth, and she wants desperately to drop her hand from the shower wall and squeeze it, test how thick it is and what it feels like to jerk him off, if he would shudder against her or stay his stoic self.

His hand has stopped running up and down her back now, and instead is slowly sliding between her buttocks. She whimpers as he presses his middle finger against her clit, and then lets out a loud almost angry moan as he moves backwards a little and presses it into her along with another.

"Fuck... R-"

"Shhhh, don't say my name."

She shivers and gasps, and he presses his long lean body against her side, kisses her hard and messy, and she comes as he presses his fingers hard against just the right spot.

For the second time that evening Beth wakes flushed and unsettled.


End file.
